


Trial Run

by Quilly



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Attempted Seduction, Attempted Temptation, Baklava, M/M, Reckless use of botany, Sensual Tension, The Arrangement (Good Omens), when is a temptation no longer a temptation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-02 04:30:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20270047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quilly/pseuds/Quilly
Summary: There are some kinks to work out before the Arrangement can take effect.





	Trial Run

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea where this came from, it just amused me to think about Aziraphale having trouble with performing temptations at the beginning. Also I really want some baklava.

“Listen, this is only going to work if you can at least sell the temptation,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale huffed. He still wasn’t entirely sure about this, but five thousand years was such a long time to spend breaking his back for Management who…maybe…were less fixated on his Earthly work than he’d thought. Crowley’s Arrangement only made sense. The problem was, Crowley performed miracles as easily as temptations, and Aziraphale…well.

“I am trying, you know,” Aziraphale sniffed. “I’ve never done this before.”

“Right, I know,” Crowley sighed, sinking into one of the chairs lining the long dining table. They’d been at this for hours now, arguing and talking and pacing the dining hall of Crowley’s country manor[1], and they were both tired and cranky at this point. Aziraphale fretted with the edge of his tunic, feeling strangely like a child being disciplined. Crowley sighed again, with something softer than exasperation. “Sit, angel, you’re making me antsy just looking at you.”

Aziraphale sat in the chair next to Crowley. Lord only knew (oh, hopefully not) why Aziraphale so wanted to make this work, but, well, Crowley had already held up his end of the bargain. There was a child who would apparently become a very influential general one day who was no longer dying of a fever to show for it. Unfortunately, there was not a friar breaking his vows and eloping with a nun to show for Aziraphale’s end.

“I am sorry, my dear, I’m not especially equipped for this,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley frowned—not in displeasure, necessarily, just deep in thought. It should have disturbed Aziraphale how easy to read Crowley’s expressions were to him now, even with his silly dark glasses still on his face[2].

“Explain to me what you think a temptation is,” Crowley said, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. “Let’s start there and work our way up. Basics.”

“Well…I suppose I’ve always thought a temptation was…you, dropping thoughts in their heads, and them following,” Aziraphale said. Crowley scowled.

“There’s more to it than that.” Crowley scooted his chair closer. “You can’t tempt someone into doing something they don’t already want to do, somewhere deep down. I’m not telling them to do anything, or changing anything about their thoughts and desires. I suggest. I insinuate.” Crowley grinned suddenly, looking over the frames of his glasses at Aziraphale and winking. “It’s a seduction, not a compulsion.”

“Seduction,” Aziraphale said thoughtfully. “I see.”

“Do you?” Crowley leaned back, still smiling, definitely looking amused.

“Of course I do,” Aziraphale frowned. “I’ve been here as long as you, Crowley, I pay attention.”

“Show me.” Crowley crossed his legs, looking expectant now. Aziraphale’s face burned.

“I have nothing to prove to you, serpent,” he spluttered, feeling his face growing hot and hating it[3].

“I rather think you do, angel,” Crowley said. He sprawled his legs back out, throwing one over the arm of his chair, lounging with the kind of supreme unpracticed elegance of one who had a vague idea of how human limbs worked but disregarded the physics of it all entirely. “Go on. Seduce me.”[4]

Aziraphale fought his suddenly-roiling emotions back down to a more manageable level. Let’s see…seduction. Not in an angel’s playbook, certainly, but there had been the odd human here and there for whom Aziraphale had apparently been a subject of attraction. Friendliness, affability, kindness—those were the purview of an angel. Yet somehow Crowley managed to find moments where he exuded all three, genuinely or not. If Crowley could do it, then Aziraphale should be able to figure out how to exude the opposite.

He supposed proximity was a good place to start as any. Aziraphale scooted his chair up until his and Crowley’s knees were touching. Crowley’s expression was one of impenetrable smugness as Aziraphale leaned forward slightly. Seductive. What did seductive look like? Smoldering? Aziraphale felt his face twitch in that direction, and Crowley snorted, his lips clamped between his teeth to keep the laughter from escaping.

“Really, now,” Aziraphale huffed, and Crowley lost his composure entirely, dissolving into peals of laughter.

“Your face!” Crowley howled, slapping his knee (and one of Aziraphale’s in the process). “You—you look constipated, angel, stop, I’ll discorporate from secondhand embarrassment!”

“Well, how do you do it, then?” Aziraphale pouted, sitting back as Crowley took off his glasses to wipe tears from his eyes. He didn’t replace them, tossing them to the table and looking at Aziraphale with warm yellow eyes. Aziraphale did not let the novelty of them distract him. “If it’s so simple—”

“I didn’t say it was simple, angel, it takes a fair bit of observation, of knowing what people want,” Crowley smiled[5]. “Not quite as simple as shooting off a miracle and being done with it. You have to know how to cater it to the person you’re tempting.”

“Miracles aren’t as simple as all that, either,” Aziraphale mumbled.

“We’ve known each other too bloody long, Aziraphale, so use that big brain of yours and think,” Crowley said, sitting forward again.

“Maybe I need a demonstration first,” Aziraphale replied. “As you say, we’ve known each other too bloody long. How would you seduce me, for example?”[6]

“With this,” Crowley said, and in the space of time it took Aziraphale to be annoyed at how there was no hesitation in Crowley’s reply, there appeared a platter of—but it couldn’t be—

Crowley picked up a piece of baklava, which Aziraphale hadn’t tasted in nearly three centuries, and slowly brought it to his mouth, closing his teeth over the delicate layers of pastry, then, with more aching slowness, crunched down, letting the honey drip down his chin as he chewed. Aziraphale wet his lips before quite knowing he was doing it, riveted on Crowley’s mouth in a way he couldn’t quite recall having been before[7]. Crowley swallowed, then lifted his hand, not breaking eye contact with Aziraphale as he licked a drip of honey sliding down his wrist. Aziraphale’s throat bobbed.

Crowley’s movements were slow and sure as he reached out, caressing Aziraphale’s jaw before taking his chin in his hand and leading Aziraphale’s head forward a tad, Aziraphale leaning into where he was being led despite the sharp chill up his spine. Crowley offered the remaining baklava, dragging his thumb down Aziraphale’s bottom lip to coax his mouth open. Aziraphale did, and made a most embarrassing noise as the baklava hit his tongue, closing his eyes against Crowley’s stare[8] and savoring the taste and textures in his mouth. When Aziraphale opened his eyes again after chewing and swallowing the bite given, Crowley’s mouth quirked up in one of the corners, and he offered the last bite.

Neither of them so much as blinked as Crowley hand-fed Aziraphale the rest, and in a completely unplanned moment of charged impulse, Aziraphale’s hand shot up to catch Crowley’s wrist before his now-free hand could pull away. He looked at Crowley for a moment, noticing how his gaze had intensified, and then looked down at Crowley’s honey-stained hand and closed his lips around one of the messy fingers. Something like a whimper seemed to escape from Crowley’s slightly-parted lips as Aziraphale finished every last crumb from each of Crowley’s fingers, moving from one to the next at the same languorous pace Crowley had set[9]. Aziraphale finished off the last of pastry leavings from Crowley’s thumb with a surprisingly audible pop, and something about the sound seemed to break through the heated quiet of the moment.

“Oh,” Aziraphale breathed, and released his grip on Crowley’s wrist. “Oh. Um.”

Crowley sat back with both of his hands back in his possession, looking winded, staring at the one that had been in Aziraphale’s mouth. He tried several times to speak before it took. “Yes. Well.”

In the collapsed bubble of…whatever that was[10]…the air solidified with awkwardness. Aziraphale licked a remnant of honey from the corner of his mouth and tried not to notice Crowley’s face reddening further.

“Exquisite craftsmanship, that baklava,” Aziraphale said bravely, and winced at his own voice, so rough and low. “It’s been too long.”

“I know,” Crowley replied, and his voice was absolutely raw, quiet. Wrecked, even. “If you…well. You. Um. Managed to turn that back around on me quite nicely. So. I don’t think you need any more pointers.”

“Right.” Aziraphale knew it was an out, knew he should take it, but stayed where he was. “I still don’t think I quite understand what I’m doing.”

“Just watch them, angel,” Crowley said, and he reached for his glasses, putting them back on. That and the exhaustion in his voice let Aziraphale know his welcome was overstayed. “You’re good at learning what the humans _need_. Now figure out what they _want_, and just…nudge them a little. Nothing to it.”

“Right,” Aziraphale said again, and stood. Crowley stood with him, swiping the platter from the table, and when Crowley handed it to him, it was a little paper box, the rest of the baklava nestled inside. Crowley forced a little smile, and Aziraphale took the box, not sure what to make of the thrill that tingled throughout him when his and Crowley’s fingers brushed. “I’ll…let you know, when it’s done?”

“Sounds good,” Crowley nodded, and cleared his throat. “Anyway. Goodnight, Aziraphale.”

“Goodnight, Crowley,” Aziraphale said, and after an interminably long moment, finally forced his eyes and his feet away from Crowley’s presence and left the manor, returning to his own cottage. A long walk in the moonlight seemed like a good way to clear his head, regain some clarity and reestablish his mental parameters concerning Crowley, and to exorcise the last of lingering heat thrumming through him[11].

The baklava was divine, of course, but Aziraphale couldn’t help but feel that something was missing[12] as he consumed the rest of it over the next few days, thinking over the problem of the friar. Aziraphale watched the friar dutifully. He was a jolly man, a little too prone to lose himself in his cups when his daily duties at the convent were done, but Aziraphale never even saw him glance in the direction of the nuns’ quarters. He frowned. Was it the intention to have the friar elope with a nun specifically, he wondered, or just to have the friar out of the holy picture? He wished Crowley were here to give him more specifics, but at the moment, he didn’t feel he could face Crowley without something to show for it[13].

The more Aziraphale watched the friar, the more he began to understand him, as was the goal. The friar loved cooking, and he adored children. He visited the various village functions (baker, smithy, innkeeper, store owner) to pay regular respects and ask about for anyone in need, and really, Aziraphale felt a bit nauseous at tempting this man down a different path when he was so clearly destined for a place in Heaven. But he kept watching anyway. He noticed that the friar, at the end of the day, would excuse himself from the company of others and find a quiet spot to read his Bible or sort out his herbs. Sometimes he sought out the quiet for hours at a time. Aziraphale could understand that.

Finally, it happened, after about two weeks of observation. The friar cleaned his work station, stowing away his medicinal supplies and his notes for the day, and got a furtive look on his face Aziraphale recognized as the look of a man about to do some sneaking about[14]. Aziraphale followed the friar as he took a casual stroll about the convent grounds and sat on a certain bench in the garden. The bench was innocuous, but Aziraphale knew from experience that it was secluded from the main building by virtue of a lovely willow tree over-exuberant in its growth. Perfect for a little clandestine meeting. And, sure enough, a figure in a black habit soon approached, her walk as casual as the friar’s, almost as if she were wandering the gardens by accident.

As soon as friar and nun were seated at the bench, there was a palpable and powerful wave of love in the air, so strong it knocked Aziraphale back a bit. Aziraphale had seen love in all sorts of unlikely places, but here, in the shy smiles of a balding friar and a greying nun, it rang out pure and true. Aziraphale felt tears on his cheeks before he could much stop it. The friar reached out and took the nun’s hand, lacing their fingers together, and they didn’t speak, just sat and enjoyed each other’s company as if they’d been doing it for years. Aziraphale’s tender heart broke for them. They weren’t even interested in the physical aspects of love, he could tell. It was enough for them to just sit by each other and exist.

Knowing the shape of what he was working with now, Aziraphale saw quite clearly how to go about this temptation. The friar would be leaving for his re-assignment soon, taking him away from the convent again. It had been this way for years, the nun devoted in her duties at the convent, the friar traveling where he was needed, somehow always ending up back here. His new assignment was quite far away, far enough away that it was likely to be his last. Aziraphale could feel the tinge of grief underlying their silent meeting now, as the information came to him on the tide of emotions.

“That’s a shame,” Aziraphale murmured, more to himself than to his subject, and then cleared his head. Focus. Temptation. Vow-breaking. This is what he was here for.

“This needn’t be the last time you see each other,” Aziraphale whispered into the ether, right into the Friar’s conscience. “The road ahead is dangerous. Anything could happen. Suppose you just…disappeared, together. Made a new life for yourselves. Someplace nice, with a little garden and a lovely little bench for watching the sunsets together. Someplace to grow old.”

Aziraphale watched with anxious hope, despite himself, as the friar conveyed the idea to the nun in halting words. The nun rejected the idea, but didn’t leave the friar’s side, in fact tightening her fingers around his. She was the practical one, Aziraphale could see, the one who worried about the details, who wondered if people were watching who would tear them apart for the non-sin of loving each other. She would be the hard sell. The friar hardly required tempting at all, he was in love with her and with the idea of a quiet cottage in the country. Aziraphale chewed his lip. Technically, the temptation was for the friar, but if he could just nudge her along, too…

He hadn’t spent two weeks observing her, however, and knew he didn’t have time before the friar would be gone. It was possible Aziraphale’s interference would ruin it all, and that was intolerable, to fracture this quiet, sturdy thing they had built together in stolen moments.

Quietly, so quietly, the friar told his nun that he loved her, and would always love her, no matter her decision, but if she wanted to come with him, he would provide for her until the end of his days. He was certain God would understand, even if their superiors didn’t. And wasn’t that more important, anyway? God’s blessing?

How could he be so sure they had it, the nun fretted, and Aziraphale had an idea. He silently spun the idea into reality, and with a very literal miracle, two flowers began to grow from the dirt at the friar and nun’s feet—a daisy and a tulip, both white, twined together as they never do in nature. Technically, the tulip wasn’t due to arrive in Europe for another five hundred years or so, but Aziraphale liked how they looked. He watched with a warm feeling growing in his chest as the friar and nun pointed out the miracle and cried and held each other, and the nun praised it as a sign and a blessing from the Lord.

For a temptation, this was making Aziraphale feel remarkably satisfied, in the kind of way holy miracles usually did. He left the happy couple to their planning, and if he tainted the temptation with a further blessing of safety and peace, nobody really had to know. There, canceling out the damage with a blessing. No score drawn.

Not all the temptations would be like this, Aziraphale knew as he walked the pleasant path towards Crowley’s manor to report. He shouldn’t expect them to be. But he was so filled with the residual love and wonder from what he’d just witnessed, Crowley scowled at him when he opened the door.

“What did you do? You’re glowing,” Crowley complained, but stood aside to let Aziraphale in. “Is the job done, then?”

“Oh, yes,” Aziraphale said, sitting in one of Crowley’s more comfortable armchairs, conveniently seated next to a table holding a bottle of wine and two fine silver goblets. “The friar and the nun are both forsaking their vows and moving to the country. They’re out of the church’s hands, now.”

“Well. Alright,” Crowley said, but he was still frowning. “I’ll put that on my paperwork, I suppose.”

Aziraphale poured a goblet of wine and held it out to Crowley, who took it on his way to sit in the adjacent chair. He snapped, and a roaring fire appeared in the fireplace, washing the room in a comfortable temperature that didn’t clash with the summer heat outside, funnily enough.

“Will you?” Aziraphale said softly, pouring his own cup of wine. “Seems like an awfully specific little job for Hell to commission, getting a small-town friar to desert.”

“Well, what can I say, I don’t pick the jobs,” Crowley said, the line of his mouth and the opacity of his glasses firm.

“I can’t help but wonder if it wasn’t more a freelance opportunity, rather than a commissioned temptation,” Aziraphale mused, swirling the wine in his goblet. Crowley’s mouth tightened. “You should have seen them, Crowley, they’re so happy. It hardly feels like I did anything wrong at all.”

“Don’t start thinking that, angel, of course you did,” Crowley snapped. “You got a holy man and a holy woman to ditch out on their devotion to God to be with each other, and that’s an act of evil. Because we’re sharing the load, here, balancing each other out.”

“Of course,” Aziraphale said, but he could tell by the twist of Crowley’s mouth he was still radiating serenity. Aziraphale couldn’t say he minded, nor could he say that he intended to stop. “I’m sure they’ll be indulging in carnal sin before they even make it to their new cottage.”

“You didn’t,” Crowley groaned, and slapped his hand over his forehead when Aziraphale sipped his wine instead of answering. “Only you could take a run-of-the-mill temptation and turn it into something pure somehow, you know that, right?”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said gently, “it’s alright to admit you thought they belonged together, too.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Crowley retorted, downing his goblet of wine and taking the bottle, drinking directly from it in a stubborn fit of pique. Aziraphale watched him with fondness, and in the moment was still so full of contentment he didn’t even rebuke himself for the unguarded emotion. Crowley coughed. “Anyway. Now that that’s all done. I’ve kept up my end, you did yours. The Arrangement is on.”

“So it would seem,” Aziraphale smiled, and held his glass out for a toast. Crowley clinked the bottle against Aziraphale’s cup, and met his smile with a smirk that was pleased enough to cross into a grin.

“Speaking of carnal sin,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale felt a stab of panic lance his perfect mood, “how was the baklava?”

“It was delicious, thank you,” Aziraphale said, finding his goblet infinitely more interesting at that moment. “I quite enjoyed it.”

“Did you, now,” Crowley said, and when Aziraphale glared at him, Crowley shrugged. “Summoned it right out from under some Greek noble’s nose, so I hope it was worth it.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said, and sighed. Crowley certainly did know how to ruin a moment, didn’t he. But, Aziraphale thought as he observed Crowley from over his goblet, Crowley’s ears were ever-so-slightly red. Aziraphale grinned. “Do you ever think of moving to a cottage in the country?”

“What?” Crowley asked blankly.

“A cottage in the country,” Aziraphale repeated. “Maybe somewhere by the sea. Have you ever considered it?”

“Not really my speed,” Crowley said, his entire bearing taut as a wire as he watched Aziraphale with open suspicion. “Not enough socialization for me, you know how I like my parties.”

“Too domestic?” Aziraphale asked, and Crowley frowned at him.

“Why, are you thinking of fixing us up with one?” Crowley snipped, throwing back another mouthful of wine. “Think Heaven and Hell will just turn a blind eye like they do to everything else, do you?”

“That’s not remotely what I meant,” Aziraphale said, and his own light mood evaporated instantly. “I was teasing.”

“Bloody awful way to tease a demon,” Crowley mumbled. “Cottage by the sea. Would lose my mind within a week. Less, if you were there.”

“If my company bores you, dear boy, I don’t have to continue gracing you with it,” Aziraphale said, putting down his goblet. Somehow this conversation was getting away from him. “I suppose I’ll see you next time we’re in the same area, then.”

“Angel,” Crowley protested as Aziraphale rose from his chair, “angel, wait—”

Somehow Crowley ended up catching one of Aziraphale’s hands in his own, and they froze, staring at each other, looking between their touching hands and each other’s faces, and anyone else watching would have thought it a hilarious little tableau[15].

“You don’t bore me,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale blinked at him. Crowley seemed incapable of saying more, his glasses sliding down his nose as he fixed Aziraphale with a wide-eyed startled stare.

“You don’t bore me, either,” Aziraphale said, and pulled Crowley to his feet. Once there, he let go of Crowley’s hand, who snatched it back like it was burnt. Aziraphale tried for a more friendly smile and ended up looking vaguely pained.

“Cottage idea isn’t that bad,” Crowley said, clearing his throat. “Maybe one day. Would be alright to have someplace quiet to retreat to, every once in a while.”

“Having a more permanent place of residence might be nice,” Aziraphale mused. “We have been rather aimless in our time here.”

“Well, necessity and all,” Crowley said, and cleared his throat again. “Anyway. Nice job on the temptation, very temptationy of you. See you for the next one.”

“Of course,” Aziraphale said, and hesitated before reaching out and touching Crowley’s arm. “The baklava was really extraordinarily good, my dear.”

Crowley swallowed hard, and seemed to force a smile on his face. “Only the best for you, angel.”

Aziraphale didn’t quite know what to say to that, so he just took his leave.

Somewhere in the countryside, a tiny stone cottage waiting on its new tenants saw an impossible explosion of tulips and daisies around the property—red and white, leaning together in the breeze, just for the couple on the way.

(And maybe a little bit for an angel and a demon, too.)

[1] His current place of residence, acting as a governor of sorts for the nearby village; Aziraphale wasn’t all that fussed about Crowley being in a very minor position of political power so much as he was peeved Crowley had a wine cellar and Aziraphale’s modest little cottage did not. If they were both going to be sticking around the area while they worked the kinks out of the Arrangement, surely their accommodations should have been equal, but no such luck.

[2] “Should have” being the operative phrase, but, well, Aziraphale was in the thick of it now, what “should have” had to do with anything was irrelevant at this point.

[3] Crowley was uncommonly good at urging this kind of reaction from him, though Aziraphale would be more upset if he didn’t give back to Crowley as good as he got, when the mood struck.

[4] Really, he needn’t have flicked his tongue quite so enthusiastically on the sibilants, Aziraphale flushed.

[5] Aziraphale should not have found it charming, but Crowley so rarely smiled with his whole face, eyes and all, it was almost worth the humiliation at Aziraphale’s expense.

[6] Aziraphale was looking forward to saving some face with this exercise, at the moment confident that angels couldn’t really be tempted, but as will be shown in a few short moments, he was foolish to think everyone didn’t have their price, even angels.

[7] Sober, anyway—there were many nights scattered through the millennia where Aziraphale had looked at Crowley, head thrown back in laughter and mouth stained with wine, but Aziraphale being hammered himself, it was easy to log away the fascination as “drunk shenanigans” and repress the memories.

[8] So that’s what a smolder was supposed to look like.

[9] If he’d let his logical brain catch up and force its way through the sudden haze of unfamiliar heat in the room, Aziraphale would have noticed that Crowley’s cheeks were flushed, pupils wide, and he would not have known what to do with the information.

[10] Sensual tension, let’s say; the trouble with angels, Fallen and Current, is, of course, that they are sexless without an Effort, but making an Effort means maintaining the Effort, which is…well…an effort. But pleasure is not restricted to Efforts, after all.

[11] It wasn’t.

[12] Some touch of sinfulness, perhaps, he thought with little humor and instant regret and no small amount of residual puzzlement.

[13] And maybe, just maybe, the confusing swirl of emotions within him needed more time to settle. Crowley often stirred him up whenever they met, but nothing quite like _that_ had ever occurred before.

[14] Which Aziraphale would know all about, he being in the habit of sneaking about to check up on his Adversary now and then and not particularly wanting Heaven to see him getting drinks with a demon.

[15] Someone certainly was watching, and Someone thought it both hilarious and a little sweet, if too early for anything substantial to come of it.


End file.
